


Qui non dormiunt

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Insomnia, Multi, Purebloods (Harry Potter), Recreational Drug Use, Sleep Deprivation, Slytherin, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy sleep patterns, semi-original characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-25 17:04:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16201862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: There is a sacred society in the House of Slytherin, ruled by those who do not sleep.





	1. Desires

**Author's Note:**

> So my experience of insomnia and watching fight club has resulted in this.

1945

Abraxas could never sleep, none of them could, that was how this all started. Slytherin students sitting up in the common room, silently staring at the bluish lights, listening to the clock tick, second passing, minutes passing, hours passing, eyes aching, daydreams blurring into reality.  
They never talked, only watched each other through red-rimmed eyes. Asleep in all ways other than actuality. They sat together: Abraxas, Lestrange, Avery, Yaxley, Carrow and Tom. Initially, that was all it had been, a group to be solitary with, connected only by the knowledge of how quiet it was at three in the morning.  
Carrow was the one to change that, once she’d come gliding down the stairs, dressed to the nines: black dress as daring as it was classy, gloves to her elbows, jewels large enough to be noticed and small enough to be tasteful. She was gorgeous, even Tom’s eyes lingered over her, seemingly impressed. She had just said she was bored of being a schoolgirl, she wanted to feel beautiful.  
It spread until the room was choked with sophistication; it made it all that much more refined, that much more exclusive. Boys in pretty suits and girls in fancy dresses. That alone caught people’s attention, the glamour of it all. Rumours spread as to what the brightest and best did until the early hours, locked together in the common room. Some suggestions were more proper than others, but even so, everyone wanted to be a part of it: one of the select few who would one day rule the world, and they would. Slytherin students were notoriously ambitious, but none more so than those six, together they could corner every market in the world, have anything and everything they wanted forever on the tips of the tongues. They were too intelligent and too rich for their own good, always polished like glass with clear-cut remarks and clever ripostes. They knew their worth and they weren’t afraid to flaunt it.  
Membership of that fragile reality made them feel that not sleeping was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to them. They started to talk to one another, learning how interesting they all were behind those pureblood smiles. Conversations became darker as the dawn drew closer, things that should never be uttered were uttered quite openly, murky thoughts and murky dreams were opined. Half-articulated utopias were conceptualised until finally they fell asleep, draped across each other, though no one wrapped themselves around Tom.  
He was their leader, and everyone knew it, he was the paramount of civilisation, the unattainable dream, the very paragon of society. They would do what he wanted but only because he so perfectly encapsulated what they wanted. They were free to voice criticism but only if it was a decent point if it was blatant censure. Tom’s eyes would go dark and ever so cold, not even Abraxas liked him like that, he was too – unpredictable. The only ones Tom never seemed to clash with were Avery, who was too passive to be any sort of threat, and Carrow who was too astute to get caught. Avery was the insufferable one, younger than the rest of them, always by Tom’s side like a lapdog, nothing better than a common sycophant, not that Tom ever treated as any more than he was: a pretty face with an expensive name. He was lying beside Tom now, not touching, but certainly closer than Tom would normally let anyone else get. Tom was absently caressing Avery’s pretty neck, nails leaving scorching marks on the pale skin.  
Carrow was taking up an entire sofa, as usual, reading something Tom had recommended, she was intelligent like that, always interested in unusual magic, and much more patient than Tom, willing to take years if she found exactly what she was looking for. It was no surprise that Tom tended to delegate research to her and in return, he found those strange books in obscure languages no one other than she could read. If she was feeling nice she would translate for them, but usually, she kept to herself; although Abraxas expected she was always listening, always gathering what they said and storing it for later.  
Yaxley was the opposite, always loud, always sharing exactly what she thought of everything and everyone. She liked smiling and laughing and pouting because it would always get her what she wanted. She was the one who changed the gatherings once more, shifting them all out of focus and throwing all of them off balance. It happened when she kissed him; soft and slow, and terribly indulgent. The others had just stared, unsure what to say or how to say it. Eventually, they got used to the idea though, that sometimes you had to say things twice to get Abraxas’ attention, that sometimes he was so distracted that nothing would get through to him. Although it wasn’t always Yaxley who distracted him, as she was very much aware.  
Often, she would chastise him for having the audacity to watch Lestrange when she was so generously sitting in his lap. Abraxas couldn’t help it; sure, girls were gorgeous, especially Yaxley, but so were boys, especially Lestrange, and even more so when he didn’t know he was being watched. When he was just sitting with Tom, elegantly twirling his quill between his fingers, listening so intently to every word Tom spoke, smiling at Tom’s ever words, completely hypnotised by him.  
He loved Lestrange in those moments, dark eyes darker, thumb resting on his jaw, looking so fascinated with everything magic could do. Lestrange loved learning, Abraxas was less enamoured with the experience, but if he loved learning about anything, it was Lestrange. He wouldn’t admit but suspected everyone probably knew anyway, he would do all sorts of things if Lestrange would let him. Nasty sickening things involving Lestrange’s teeth at his neck, and his own hands exploring places boys shouldn’t want to find. He would let Lestrange have him here if he wanted, here in front of the others, in front of Tom.  
That was the secret he kept guarded far more closely. When time trickled past them, and the world became so hazy and his eyes began to sting, Abraxas would close them and think of his one truly private fantasy: Tom. His seraph leading them all to the next world, building with them a new dynasty that would preside over the new world as a god. Sometimes Tom returned his hazy sleep-deprived gazes, and just for a moment, he wondered if he knew what sickening dreams he dreamt. 

Sitting together at three in the morning was a strange experience, it was when the colours started blurring together and dripping down the walls when he could feel disjointed hands on his waist but didn’t know whose fumbling hands they were. His whole world was hazy and distorted, reality shifting into memory and then crumbling before them. Abraxas liked the world at three in the morning. When it was still dark outside, and the bluish lights infected them all with a garish brilliance.  
It was at three in the morning when Lestrange first kissed him, much to Yaxley’s delight. His mouth was slow and demanding, never letting Abraxas have a moment to breathe, a continuous exigency, filled to the brim with wanting and wonder. He hadn’t understood why Lestrange had felt so compelled, but neither had he questioned it. He’d just submerged himself in the feeling, let the world fizz and dissolve around him until he was kissing just a mouth suspended against a pale sphere.  
In the morning he’d thought he’d dreamed it all, Lestrange showed him no additional kindness or care or compassion, but Lestrange was never kind so perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d kept looking over, wondering if he’d finally lost touch with the fingers of reality. However as soon as they were alone, and the night was sliding past, he was plunged back to actuality. Lestrange was so intimate. Lips against his jaw, fingers exploring places they really shouldn’t, searching for an unadulterated salvation found only on other people’s tongues.  
The others didn’t mind: Yaxley still got her share of Abraxas, Carrow got to watch the visions from a suitably impartial distance, Avery got to understand that which his innocent eyes had never seen, and Tom, Tom was simply apathetic. Simply uninterested in what his subordinates did with their mouths and their tongues and their hands, as long as they didn’t do it all the time, he was fine.  
That didn’t stop Abraxas wanting something different though, imagining Tom being less indifferent. Imagining him taking advantage of the situation as physically, as he did psychologically. Tom with his apathetic eyes and lovely lazy hands. He could almost feel them curving up his spine, but he knew he couldn’t, Tom was across the room, reading. It was Yaxley’s hands that smoothed his hair, and Lestrange’s hands that bumped across his ribs. In those moments his sultry thoughts clouded the air and he kissed Lestrange’s mouth harder, sinfully wishing it wasn’t Lestrange’s lips he was kissing. 

It was in the bitter dullness of three in the morning, the first time those deluded fantasies had been realised: the others were asleep, Lestrange leaning lightly on Carrow’s right and Yaxley on her left, Avery against the arm of the chair several inches from Tom. Abraxas was not asleep, despite the burning in his eyes and despite the ache deep in every limb, he was awake. Staring, forever staring at the endless walls, watching forever watching the smudging of the colours as they collided across the room, the bluish curls of light copulating with the glittering green, black melting into white engendering every unmistakable hue between them. The mirrors glinted, and the glass gleamed, and the room was so quiet. The absence of anything pressing heavily on his mind as if he were drowning, lungs filling with the watery diamonds of excess. Abraxas felt drunk on it all, high on the devastating silence, forever seeing a thousand bright visions that would make no sense by the morning.  
He barely registered the sofa dipping or Tom’s fingers tracing the sinews in his neck. The apparitions only crumbling to powder when Tom’s fingers pressed against his pulse. When he turned there was such clarity in Tom’s eyes, crystal clear sobriety that brought Abraxas back to a trembling actuality. Tom’s hands were cold, frosted and callous and ever so gentle; fingers gliding across his jaw before sliding down the helix of his ear. They were so close in the silence, Tom’s eyes dark as damp earth and filled to the brim with an ophidian sharpness. Even now he was remote, detached from the world as if he had severed his connection with reality long ago, given himself entirely to esoteric dreams and impossible fantasies. Ambition dripped down his face, so thick Abraxas could almost feel it on his fingertips. There were shadows in Tom’s face he’d never seen before, or perhaps he’d never been close enough to see them; dark purple shadows like bruises down his cheeks and blue shadows smudged under his eyes. Abraxas had never seen someone so perfect stained with so much imperfection, but he’d never really known anyone like Tom.  
Their kisses were so lazy, so lethargic and languorous, lips fitting together so effortlessly. They did nothing more but taste each other’s mouths; Tom was sour and hollow, devoid of any emotional substance, and yet so compelling to kiss. Sitting there in the silence, mouths pressed together, hearing nothing save the noise of blood throbbing beneath their skin, was devastatingly intimate. Tom’s cold hand against his cheek, fingertips light against his cheekbones, just kissing him for what felt like hours, perhaps it was After midnight time melts into an endless abyss punctuated with occasional brilliance.  
They fell asleep like that, lying so close, Tom looked strangely innocent when he slept, all the horror of what he was, temporarily removed, leaving whatever was left of his soul. It was the nicest thing to which Abraxas had ever fallen asleep.

No one ever spoke of what happened here. It was their private secret, no one needed to know what they did in the dark at three in the morning. That didn’t mean they were forgotten though, they were notorious; a photo of them would hang on the walls for years, no one ever daring to forget the founders of the most infamous society in the house of Slytherin. That picture was soon joined by another and another until they dedicated a wall to remember those whose eyes burned as they watched their liquid world evaporate in those wretched hours so late at night.


	2. Decadence

1971

That sleepless society was the most exclusive association anyone could belong to after all nowadays it was terribly fashionable to never sleep, such an honour, such a privilege to be awake until the sun was rising again. Every Slytherin knew of them, the invincible few that even sleep couldn’t conquer. Of course, they didn’t see the horror in their smiles, or the dark circles under their eyes, or the hollows in their hearts. All their innocent eyes saw was the wonder and the magnificence, the pre-eminence of such extraordinary people.  
Lucius had mixed feelings about it all, it was, of course, a burden not to sleep, to have the constant overwhelming tiredness that made him feel like he was endlessly falling, seeing everything out of focus, hearing nothing of the trivial nonsense everyone seemed to speak. They were all half-dead and yet so very alive. They were the closest anyone had ever been to nirvana, they were on the edge of ecstasy and every night their fingers scraped heaven, so it was all worth it, worth the stinging eyes, worth the dull senses, worth the disorientating visions, it was worth it all for a chance to taste paradise.  
The group was still limited to just six, the best, the brightest, the wonders of tomorrow. This year it was Rodolphus, who took on the role of leader purely because he was the oldest, Mulciber, Avery, Lucius himself, Evan and Bellatrix. They looked good together, sitting, bodies too close for them not to remember what had passed between them. There was no such thing as personal space after midnight, they were adorned with each other, breathing brilliant air and falling under decadence’s spell.  
They all knew what they did wasn’t what their parents had done, nor would it be approved of, but since when did they need approval. What was the point in being smothered in money if you couldn’t enjoy it a little? Where was the fun in having too much money if you couldn’t toy with people on occasion? Money was such a powerful instrument, play it right and everyone was tripping over themselves to dance. There was a beauty in the lengths people would go to escape their personal poverty, a beauty in human weakness when something glittered before them; together they laughed about it, after all, human weakness could only ever be used to their advantage.  
Anyway, they rather enjoyed being simply outrageous, tongues between each other’s thighs at three in the morning, leaving white handprints in soft flesh and memories none of them could forget no matter how indistinct the world became. Lucius liked to think of his father’s face, see the straitlaced attitude be scandalised at what his son did just for fun. He’d be lectured, but his father didn’t understand what the world looked like at three in the morning, didn’t understand what you did then didn’t reflect your image in the real world.  
He’d never bothered to look at the wall, never bothered to look at the pictures on it and see his father’s face. Those pictures only showed the past, and the past was no longer important, not when a bright new future loomed on the horizon. 

He felt strangely isolated, sitting here, watching people he held in equal admiration and contempt. Bellatrix laughing too loud at Mulciber, Rodolphus looking on with disinterest. Bellatrix was everyone’s favourite, always willing to do things you’d never dream of doing with a respectable woman. Lucius would like to have said she wasn’t his type, but she was. Bellatrix was everyone’s type, a wild ride you went to in order to feel that much more alive, she only girl allowed into what many regarded as a boy’s club. She didn’t care, if anything, she rather liked it, being the one to which they all turned. She was also nothing like her sister and Lucius wasn’t sure whether that was a blessing or a curse: while Narcissa was polite and prim and proper, Bellatrix was unruly and unkept and untameable, and so unashamed about it. She always said that virgins never made history, it was the Mistresses that ruled the world, so why should she waste her time being so vestal and proper if it was all going to go to waste.  
Currently, she was lying on her back, head in Rodolphus’ lap, though her eyes were watching Mulciber with far more interest. Lucius had been watching them for a long time, sneaking around, Rodolphus knew, everyone who was anyone knew that, well apart from Mulciber apparently. Rodolphus also didn’t care, Lucius supposed he was entitled to his own opinions on the matter, but frankly, he didn’t know why he tolerated someone else screwing his girlfriend so blatantly. Although it was definitely Bellatrix who held the prevailing role in their relationship, everyone else just got swept along by her storm.  
Not that he really cared what they did, he’d never liked Rodolphus particularly, there was something about him that was off-putting, like a fractured mirror, unnerving with an infinite callousness pervaded the air around him. He could command a room should he want to, but he rarely did, always letting Lucius do the talking, said he was far better at spinning sweet spiderwebs. Even when he was kissing him under the greenish glow he was nothing more than a cold apparition, the only tangible marks he left behind red scratches of glassy nails and purple contusions from fingers pressed too hard into his skin. Lucius was grateful for those, they grounded him, reminded him of the concrete world he walked on.  
The only one here he really liked was Evan, the others were just filler, expensive, attractive, intelligent filler, but filler nonetheless. Evan was the only one with a spark; a brilliant glitter about him. Passionate, persuasive, perverse just for the hell of it, Evan was almost certainly going to die young, he had that way about him: wild, and turbulent and completely outrageous. He lit up the sky late at night and danced under the stars. He was too brilliant to live forever, and it would be such a waste to see him go so young, but Lucius suspected Evan wouldn’t have it any other way.  
Evan’s favourite though was Lucius’ least: Avery was classless and crude, nothing more than a pretty face. One that for some reason that he would never understand, had attracted someone as brilliant as Evan. Avery did have some desirable qualities if you looked very closely: a superficial charm and a shallow smile that lured people into ranks perhaps they would prefer not to be in. But there was no substance behind that smile, and Lucius did not like to see such common hands smearing dirt across someone was dazzling as Evan.  
Evan was the wildest one, dragging them all down into the watery depths with him, always pushing the limits, swallowing pretty pills that glazed the world sugar-pink, or powder that brought you closer to permanent bliss. Lucius had been sceptical at the beginning, unsure that Muggle drugs were really appropriate, Evan had soothed his nerves, fingers light against his wrists, lips uninhibited against his neck. Evan could be very persuasive. So, Lucius lived in a green-tinted world, seeing things no one in the world had seen before, feeling like he was on top of the world. It wasn’t real, but it felt real and that was all that mattered. Seeing the world so clearly, black and white dipped in green and wrapped in champagne. Monsters with lovely hands stroking his hair, making reality feel so good. Someone’s hands against his own, he would never know whose, someone’s tongue and someone’s teeth, someone’s lips. Maybe Bellatrix, but the nails weren’t long enough, maybe Rodolphus, but the fingers weren’t cold enough, maybe it was Evan between his thighs, Evan in his lap causing an indistinct desire to spill into his reality, soaking everything he touched. He watched reality dissolve and rebuild itself, dissolve and rebuild, dissolve. Sloppy tongue and dark hair, tongue forever swirling. Evan didn’t have dark hair and Lucius didn’t know who was between his legs doing obscene things. He didn’t really care either. That was the thrill of it, wasn’t it? Never knowing, waking up not remembering anything other than the buzz that was still reverberating through his skull and the need to do it all again. To see every sunset and every sunrise and every fraction of the moon.  
Three in the morning was a wonderful time filled with shadows and secrets and wonderful mouths doing wonderful things and none of them would ever give it up, not for anything in all the world.


	3. Despair

1997

Draco knew he was a disappointment. He could see it in his father’s face from across the wall, and his grandfather’s. He knew their pictures by heart and so always knew when their eyes were on him, judging him, reminding him of all his failures.  
The society was not the same as when they had been here. His forebears had lived through the heyday with all its glory and wonder. Now, everyone saw their haunted eyes and the shadows in their faces seemed so much darker. No one wanted to be them anymore, now, they were the reminder of what happened when you didn’t follow the right path. They were the monster, the demons, the darkness of the world. Perhaps once that would have thrilled him, but Draco had seen real monsters and he didn’t want to be one. 

None of them, not Flora, or Hestia, or Pansy, or Theodore, or Blaise or even Draco himself, could close their eyes anymore. They were too scared of what they would find lost in their heads. Frightful, frightful images of what had passed before their eyes. Flashes of light blurring with screams and sobs and desperate cries; their entire existence was stained with death. So, they lay here because each other was all they had left in this new bright world. Lay there, eyes stinging wanting to cry but unable to find any tears left in their hearts.  
It was worst at three in the morning when it darker than black and a devastating sorrow permeated the air. When atrocity lurked in every corner, and uneasiness melting into a paranoia that pricked their eyes and burned their skin. Three in the morning, that was when the demons really clawed at their flesh, reality crashing likes waves against a cliff, hoping to collapse their fragile minds. At those moments the world seemed so much darker than it really was, overflowing with the shadows of people who were dead and the glowing eyes of people they all wished were dead. All hope left them at three in the morning. Left them alone in the dark, under a bluish glow that brought out the fear so permanently lodged in their features. Nightmares choked them, gripping their throats and dragging them into an abyss they knew too well.

No one cared what happened to them anymore, they could see it in their expressions: the contempt, the disgust, the complete horror of what their parents were, and thus what they were. Their names were so stained that no amount of money could ever wash away the dirt. They were all bound by their unspeakable names, it tied them together and kept them close to one another and so very isolated from everybody else.  
Draco knew he had it comparatively lightly, he still had his parents in body even if they weren’t always there in spirit. No one cared that Theodore’s parents were dead, or that Hestia and Flora had no respectable family left. They did not care that Blaise had seen so much death and that Pansy had uttered frightful words that tore at her stomach every time she thought of them. No one cared about them, it was unfashionable to be sympathetic and people hadn’t changed at all, despite what their mouths might say. It made him angry, angry that no one understood what it was like to be on the wrong side, but for every ounce of anger that filled his bones there was just as much sadness, just as much fear and just as much guilt.  
That endless fear for Flora and Hestia who dared not walk alone down dark corridors, no Slytherin with a pureblood name would anymore. They had heard such things whispered, said, shouted, done. They called them cowards for not wanting to kill their parents and their friends. People could be cruel when they didn’t understand. They never said anything though, what would be the point? No one cared about them, why have silver when you could have gold? So, all they had was each other, sitting together with burning eyes and burning throats, searching the darkness for someone to save them from their hell.  
Draco liked to look at them, see past the hollow shells they’d become, and imagine better times. He was watching them now. Hestia curled up with Pansy, stroking each other’s hair. In these moments you could see Pansy for what she was, her makeup smudged and tears always in her eyes. She held herself together so well, but after midnight it became too much to hold that perfection in place and her whole world began to slide. He liked to think of her as she had been, and he supposed she still was, flirty and funny. The first witch he’d kissed and the one he always dreamed about. The girl who wasn’t afraid to get what she wanted through whatever means necessary. The one with perfect makeup and gorgeous clothes that put everyone else to shame. The one who was strong and protective, the friend who held their hands when the world became too much. Though these days she was the one that needed her hand holding. Hestia knew that. Hestia who was always so gentle, fingers soft against Pansy’s cheek. Hestia who always smelled nice, her pretty flowery perfume so sweet and soft, she wasn’t a monster, she was an angel, who knew exactly what words to use to soothe troubled minds. Sometimes she would hum quietly, give them all something to focus on at that dreaded hour of three in the morning.  
Draco’s gaze passed to Theodore; Theodore who had always been a loner, but now looked truly lonely. Sitting, staring, seeing nothing and no one but at the same time seeing every apparition that possessed their troubled minds, every smile, every laugh that everyone who did not know deemed to be acts of purest evil. They had been people, misguided, twisted, monstrous, but people nonetheless and people had families and stories and Theodore knew every one of them, though he could not speak them without the words clogging his throat and tears falling from his eyes.  
He watched how Theodore held Flora’s hand, they would have been the next great dynasty, now they were nothing. Flora always quiet, was so much quieter. She did not dare to speak in case the words came out wrong and she was thrust back into the savagery of that world. Most people mistook her silence for guilt, for pride, for an inflated self-worth where she looked down upon them all. They were wrong. Flora was cast so far into the depth of the underworld she dared not look above her now so lowly station. She dared not look on the gods of this new world because they passed such cruel judgements. So, she and Theodore would sit in their silence, comforted only in the knowledge that the other sat so close.  
He looked at Blaise, as beautiful as ever and just as distant from reality. Blaise who he had shared so much with, the one who knew all his secrets and had never been afraid of them. Blaise’s soft voice was always a comfort in his ear, just as his fingers were when they slatted together so perfectly. Blaise was special, quiet and polite, their one connection to the real world because Blaise had never really done anything truly wrong, he was just caught in the collateral and had chosen to stay by Draco’s side. 

They lay together staring at the ceiling, bluish light shining on their imagined sins, swirling patterns that made them sick but also unable to look away. It was a cold light, but it was a cold world. There was such solidarity in those moments, a unanimity, they had each other even if they had no one else. Often none of them said anything, they just lay staring at the ceiling dreaming the world was a different place. Collective thoughts passed between them, sad brooding thoughts about how much brighter the next life was supposed to be. Theodore had articulated it once, asked them if they wanted to. That moment had been so profound, all of them looking at each other, knowing in their hearts that they all wanted to. Draco had been scared, truly scared then. To know he had so close to losing all he had left and that they had been so close to losing him.  
A plan was made but never used. They would do it together. Lie back on the carpet, in a circle, heads together, staring at that swirling ceiling and watch everything slowly fade to black; leaving their endless woes hovering above their bodies in an empty reality. They would go into the next world together, arm in arm, safe from what horrors lay behind them. But none of them could bear to do it, bare to think what it would do to the house of Slytherin, what painful unending memories such an act would leave behind. None of them could bear to be a ghost and watch the aftermath, watch the tears and silence spread until it covered everything with a mildew. 

Only when they were together could they cry, could they share what bubbled so hopelessly inside them. Draco had been the first, he couldn’t keep it hidden anymore, not when it was so overwhelming, and he was overflowing with despair. Not when those memories melted together, and truest horrors were born.  
In the middle of the floor it had spilled out and his world had crumbled around him; he had fallen apart at three in the morning, so scared for the dawn that he never wanted to open his eyes again.  
They all felt the same, lost in a world they weren’t meant for, and they all cried together, heads on each other’s shoulders and fingers tracing bones, dreaming of things that would never come true. Draco could still feel the gentle kisses on his skin, damp and cold, but so very human. Foreheads together and fingers intertwined, desperation, longing and hope mingling in the air. Making the sourness that little bit sweeter for a few moments.  
It was comforting to have each other, hands fumbling to hold each other, lips awkwardly searching for each other. They touched each other to remind themselves they were still alive, that the material world still lay before them. They touched each other with nervous fumbling hands that felt so much younger than they were and lost desperate eyes that would always be searching for salvation.  
He liked Theodore’s lips against his own, liked to be reminded that Theodore was just as scared as he was. Every kiss was quick and bitter like they would never have the opportunity for another. Every touch of Theodore’s hands was rushed and blurred, lost to an endless memory or what could have been. Draco’s hands always shook when he touched Theodore, and when Theodore touched him back, hands along his thighs, fingers on his hips, scared, lost, yet still searching for a purpose.  
He liked Pansy when she kissed Hestia, so slow and purposeful, a reminder of the joys of living. He also liked it when she kissed him, filled with nostalgia of their younger, more innocent days. He would happily get on his knees to make Pansy feel like the goddess she was. Fingers slow, mouth slower, giving him a moment to ground himself, focus. Time was different that early in the morning, sedative and sluggish and perfect for turning half-formed fantasies into clumsy realities.  
Blaise was just as slow when he was between Draco’s own thighs, the calming force that dampened the fear, his lips were soft as were his words and Draco could listen to him forever. Could touch and feel safe and alive, protect for the darkest dreams he dreamt, protected from the disappointment of his ancestors. He liked to touch Blaise, run his fingers down his face and find the beauty in the world. In many ways, Blaise was his guardian angel, the reason to live, the fight another day in a bleak world. Draco hoped that Blaise felt the same, that in some small insignificant way, he was the hope for some of them, the light at the end of the tunnel. Draco was like to be an inspiration if he could be nothing more.  
They were grateful that they had this space, even if they sneered at, even if they were called weak because when they were with each other they knew that the monsters that lurked in their minds and rose into material likenesses at three in the morning, could not hurt them. So, they would not lose this society of solidarity for those who dared not sleep, not for all the wonder in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at any generation other than the 1940s so I hope characterisations weren't too bad, any feedback is welcome. Thanks for reading.


End file.
